Tuesday, January 19, 2010

What Our Blood Remembers

These are terms used to describe someone who is unexplainably good at something. Typically something they had never tried before and had no training in.

But maybe they did in a way.

Modern science is still only beginning to unravel the mysteries of the double helix. Human DNA is a complex and fascinating thing. And blood it turns out, has a memory. It’s been known for some time now that many skills are hereditary. Through the evolutionary processes those who survived to pro-create endowed their offspring with those same survival abilities.

Being a skillful hunter can include anything from being fast and powerful, to having a keen sense of smell and strong powers of observation, to being talented with weapons and having an intuition of where to find and how to take down prey.

But along with necessary skills to provide food, shelter and safety, there are other skills that get passed along. Abilities such as being musical, artistic, analytical, philosophical, imaginative and mechanically minded.

There are thousands of talents that are intermingled in the genetic hand-me-downs. And it is possible that a person may be gifted at dancing or brilliant at math from the same dominate and recessive gene process that causes a person’s eyes to be blue or their hair to be curly.

The biggest difference is that unlike physical traits that are obvious, aptitudes for things are not so apparent. A person may never find out they have a knack for something until they’ve tried it or are placed in a situation where they suddenly are forced to do it.

A person may go half their life and never know they have the agility of a mixed martial artist, the eye of a marksman or the hand of a painter. And some skills do require training to fine tune them before their full ability comes into fruition.

This is one of the reasons that not only is it important for children to have exposure to different things when they are young (so their stronger talents can be identified and trained) but also that throughout a person’s life they should constantly be trying new things and engaging in new activities.